Expatriate doctors including from Pakistan, unable to return to work in Kuwait due to a halt to air travel over the global coronavirus pandemic, will be brought back next month, Kuwaiti newspaper Al Jarida has reported, citing well-informed health sources.

The Kuwaiti Health Ministry has compiled lists of those doctors, working at the ministry’s hospitals, to prepare their return flights, according to the sources that expect their return to take place in the first half of July.

Kuwait is coordinating with the home countries of those doctors including Pakistan, Egypt and India on their return, the sources said.

“Great efforts have been made over the past period to finalise return procedures of the expatriate doctors, who work at the Health Ministry’s hospitals and other facilities and are still stuck abroad after their home travel before the eruption of the coronavirus pandemic,” the sources added.

Kuwaiti public hospitals and medical centres have already sent names of their expatriate medical staff to the ministry’s technical department to arrange for their return.

Earlier this month, 658 nurses and lab technicians returned from India to Kuwait in three groups. Other batches of nurses will soon return to their work in Kuwait from the Philippines and Egypt.